No matter what point you're at on your road to writing and selling poetry, you've probably run into some unfamiliar terms. The classification and analysis of poetry involves terms that we may not hear in any other kind of writing. It can be frustrating when you've not heard the words before. Plus, learning some new words can give you ideas for new ways to structure your poetry and new techniques to try. So let's explore some poetic jargon.

Acrostic poem: A poem where the first letter of the first word of each line create a word when read vertically. These are very popular with editors for seasonal poetry or holiday poetry. They are especially popular in humorous poetry, though you can also see them in sentimental poetry.

Accent: The point where the extra stress falls in each word. In the word turtle, the accent is on the first syllable -- TURtle -- while in the word tureen, the accent is on the second syllable -- tuREEN

Ballad: A short narrative poem with stanzas of two or four lines and usually a refrain. For magazines that accept longer story poems, a ballad can be a fun way to present a historical or fairy tale story in verse. One way to see if your ballad works is to try singing it. Like all story poems, it must work as a story as well as a poem.

Blank Verse: Metered language without rhyme. Often the meter for blank verse is iambic (where an unaccented syllable is followed by an accented syllable).

Cinquain: A five-line stanza of syllabic verse, the successive lines containing two, four, six, eight and two syllables. The cinquain is an American invention based on the Japanese haiku.

Couplet: Two successive lines of poetry, usually of equal length and meter with end-words that rhyme. Most beginning poets write poetry composed of couplets (thus editors tend to be more impressed when a poem is not composed of couplets.)

Free Verse: A fluid form of poetry that conforms to no set rules though it usually involves poetic devices. Free verse is not popular in magazine poetry though it is seen in YA stories and poetry.

Light Verse: A relaxed style of poetry written to amuse and entertain. Light verse is the primary poetic staple of children's magazines.

Lyric(al) Poetry: A poem where the primary component is emotion. The poem may be about the emotion itself or about an emotional reaction to a person, event, etc. Most magazines for young children avoid lyric poetry, though teen magazines use them (usually written by teens.)

Near Rhyme: Also called approximate rhyme, slant rhyme, off rhyme, imperfect rhyme, or half rhyme, a rhyme in which the sounds are similar, but not exact, as in home and come or close and lose. Most near rhymes are types of consonance where there is a close repetition of end consonant sounds but different vowel sounds.

Perfect Rhyme: Also called true rhyme or exact rhyme, a rhyme which meets the following requirements: an exact match in both the vowel sound and the sound of the final consonant (when the words end in consonant sounds) but with different consonant sounds preceding the vowel (which means a single word cannot rhyme itself), and a similarity of accent on the rhyming syllable(s). If two words end with the same vowel and consonant sounds but the meter doesn't match, you do not have a perfect rhyme.

Rhyme Scheme: The regular pattern of rhymes in a poem.

Scan: To mark a poem into rhythmic units. When an editor says that a poem doesn't "scan," she is usually saying that the poem cannot be divided into a pattern of regular rhythmic units.

Sight Rhyme: Words spelled similarly that look as though they should rhyme but do not when pronounced like boot and soot.

Verse: Writing with a distinct metrical pattern.